SYNOPSIS: Jane Wyman is a repressed wealthy widow and Rock Hudson is the hunky Thoreau-following gardener who loves her in Douglas Sirk’s heartbreakingly beautiful indictment of 1950s small-town America. Sirk utilizes expressionist colors, reflective surfaces, and frames-within-frames to convey the loneliness and isolation of a matriarch trapped by the snobbery of her children and the gossip of her social-climbing country club chums. Criterion is proud to present this subversive Hollywood tearjerker in a special edition.
| Cary Scott | Jane Wyman |
| Ron Kirby | Rock Hudson |
| Sara Warren | Agnes Moorehead |
| Harvey | Conrad Nagel |
| Alida Anderson | Virginia Grey |
| Kay Scott | Gloria Talbot |
| Ned Scott | William Reynolds |
| Mick Anderson | Charles Drake |
| Dr. Hennessy | Hayden Rorke |
| Mona Plash | Jacqueline de Wit |
| Jo-Ann | Leigh Snowden |
| Howard Hoffer | Donald Curtis |
| George Warren | Alex Gerry |
| Manuel | Nestor Paiva |
| Mr. Weeks | Forrest Lewis |
| Tom Allenby | Tol Avery |
| Mary Ann | Merry Anders |
| Director | Douglas Sirk |
| Producer | Ross Hunter |
| Screenplay | Peg Fenwick |
| Based on the story by | Edna L. Lee and Harry Lee |
| Cinematography | Russell Metty |
| Art direction | Alexander Golitzen and Eric Orbom |
| Set decoration | Russell A. Gausman and Julia Heron |
| Editing | Frank Gross |
| Music | Frank Skinner |
By June 18, 2001
Douglas Sirk once said: “This is the dialectic—there is a very short distance between high art and trash, and trash that contains an element of craziness is by this very quality nearer to art.” When Read more »
By January 21, 2009
It’s a clichéd truism that moviemaking is a collaborative art. Of course it is, and there are dozens, if not hundreds, of examples of directors working time and again with the same crew members Read more »
January 11, 2011
Two critics recently have reminded their readers about a couple of Criterion’s most luscious Technicolor treats. First, in the Nashville Scene, Jim Ridley sings hallelujah for Douglas Sirk’s masterful Read more »
August 06, 2009
Jonathan Rosenbaum has been posting a lot of his past work on his (relatively) new blog, a real boon for cinephiles, as the former Chicago Reader critic’s archives are four bounteous decades deep. The Read more »
